By Ed Marcum, News-Sentinel staff writer
June 19, 2002 

Historic preservation can help save neighborhoods, but it can raise some obstacles against affordable housing as well, a local developer has learned. 

Victor Jernigan is rehabilitating a two-story house on Thompson Place in Old North Knoxville, which is designated as one of Knoxville's historic districts.  Jernigan's intention was to turn the house into a triplex, but he said the extra costs of finishing the house to meet historic district guidelines have caused him to change his plans. "I bought it as rental property, but we'll have to finish it as a single-family home with about a $200,000* sale price," he said.

Jernigan said this is because many of the materials he wanted to use in the renovation were not allowed under the design guidelines adopted when historic overlay zoning was put in place in Old North Knoxville.  Under that zoning, anyone wanting to make an exterior change to a building drastic enough to require a building permit must get plans approved by the Knoxville Historic Zoning Commission. 

Jernigan took his proposal to the board in January and started running into obstacles, he said. The wood siding on the house was rotted, and Jernigan wanted to replace it with a type of fiber cement siding called hardy plank. This material would be molded to look like the planks covering the house but would last longer and require less maintenance, he said. 
However, the design guidelines called for wood siding, so that's what the board told him to use. Jernigan said. This will cost $17,000 to do the house, compared to $12,000 to $14,000 with hardy plank, Jernigan said.

 
He had also wanted to replace the damaged cornices on five porch columns with ones that were similar to those on a house across the street. These would cost $200 each, but the board directed him to get cornices just like the ones he was replacing. Jernigan said these cost about $700 each. 

"I don't have a problem with historic preservation," Jernigan said. "I understand why people want to live in a historic neighborhood and how this can increase the value of property in a neighborhood."  However, he said the guidelines governing construction and renovation need more flexibility. It should be possible for a person to rehabilitate a property so that, even though it might not meet strict historic standards, it would still be in keeping with the neighborhood, and would provide affordable housing.

 
Tomica Miller, president of Old North Knoxville Inc., along with her husband, Dave Whaley, agree the guidelines could make it more difficult to rehabilitate a home for rental property in the neighborhood, but say there are plenty of rental properties in Old North Knoxville, so it isn't impossible.  It depends on how ambitious the landlord's plans are, Whaley said. "There is a big different between restoration and renovation," Whaley said.

 
Ann Bennett, Metropolitan Planning Commission planner in charge of historic preservation, serves as an adviser to the historic zoning commission. She said historic guidelines do not necessarily keep someone from restoring a house for rent, because most of the work to be done would be to the interior of the house, and historic guidelines deal only with its exterior. "Plumbing, electrical, interior walls - none of those things are covered under historic overlay zoning," Bennett said. In fact, nothing in the guidelines would require Jernigan to do anything to the house if he didn't want to, she said. He could leave the exterior just as it is and not even have to appear before the board.  "I have seen occasionally here and in Memphis where changes someone wanted to make did increase the cost of rehabbing that building, but the emphasis here is on the phrase 'changes that someone wanted to make.' Historic zoning is never retroactive. It accepts whatever exists at the time of (the zoning) designation," Bennett said. 

However, the siding on the house had to be replaced, Jernigan said. Besides, he doesn't want to leave it in the shabby shape it's in now. He said he wants to turn it into an attractive house again.  "In its day, it was a grand house, and when we restore it, it will be a grand house," Jernigan said. 

Some planners do see difficulties in developing affordable housing under historic zoning. During the 2000 American Planning Association National Planning Conference, planners involved with some groups that provide affordable housing submitted an abstract dealing in part with this problem.  One of these groups was Primavera Builders, a nonprofit affordable housing agency that took on the task of rehabilitating a half-block in Tucson, Ariz., into homes for first-time buyers. Calling it the South Tenth Avenue Adobe Project, the agency restored five homes and built five others, all of them blending well with the neighborhood and selling for $67,400 each. However they averaged $123,500 each to build, and Primavera relied heavily on federal funds and money from private foundations to complete the project.  The full report can be found on the Web at http://www.asu.edu/caed/proceedings00/CHATFIE/chatfie.htm . 

Miller said she can understand why those doing a rental project under historic zoning guidelines might have problems, but people need to understand why the guidelines are necessary. "The design guidelines are put in place to keep the historical aspect of the neighborhood," she said.  They are the reason many people wish to live in Old North Knoxville, Miller continued.  They are a recognition that whoever buys one of the homes owes something to history as well as to the bank, Whaley added. "We are just up-keeping these houses. They will be here long after we are gone," he said. 

* Asking price on the house as of July 11 is $235,000.